Page 91 of Drive
Since she couldn’t speak, she just noddedfiercely.
“Ready?” he asked, tilting his head to the side to eye herclosely.
“Yeah,” she managedfinally.
Jacques squeezed her hand again before letting it go. “Okay. Let’s do this. I’ll text you as soon as Ican.”
Rainey’s heart started an almost painful chugging, and her pores spontaneously opened. “Okay,” she said on a shakybreath.
They both opened the doors of the Impala and stepped out. The breeze whipped hair into her face, and the air smelled of rain and springtime. She tucked the candy into her skirt pocket as he watched Jacques set off across the parking lot, and his monstrous strides had him halfway to the salon before Rainey could clip on Archie’s leash. It didn’t help that her fingers were trembling and she had to use one hand to hold down her skater skirt against thewind.
Once leashed, Archie jettisoned himself from the back seat and strained at the lead as he pulled her to the first patch of grass he could find. While her dog marked new and unchartered territory, Rainey watched Jacques disappear into thesalon.
She walked Archie over to a cluster of trees at the edge of the parking lot. The wind in the young trees and the whoosh of blood through her ears drowned out sounds from the highway. Not wanting to miss Jacques’s text, she pulled her phone from her pocket and held it in a tightgrip.
This was how she stood, heart racing, body rigid, and guts looped in knots when a yellow school bus turned into the shopping center’s parking lot. She didn’t give it a second thought until it pulled up right in front of her and opened its doubledoors.
A gust of wind blew curls into her face, and when Rainey cleared them from her eyes, a boy stood before her. She froze, eyes wide, staring — she knew — at her brother. And he was staring atArchie.
“Hey, is that your dog?” He bent forward and slapped his thighs in the universal dog welcome, and Rainey could only stand there with her mouth open. “He’s socute!”
The school bus stop signs retracted, and the vehicle rumbled away. Or maybe the rumble was from the approaching thunderheads. Rainey couldn’t be sure. All she could do was gawk at the boy in front ofher.
“What’s his name? Can I pethim?”
“Uh…” Rainey opened and closed her mouth, but the utterance was all she couldproduce.
Ray Charles glanced up at her with a look ofworry.
“Does he bite?” he asked, frowning. He wore black-rimmed glasses that were just a little too big for his face, and he touched the corner of them to adjust them as he spoke. The lenses made his hazel eyes look slightly larger than life, so the recognition of them hit her with unexpectedforce.
She shook her head quickly and found her tongue. “No, no. His name’s Archie. He’sfriendly.”
Ray Charles threw his gaze back to the dog and dropped to his knees, the wind from the approaching storm tousling his hair as he did. “Hi, Archie!” he greeted, and his enthusiasm was only second to Archie’s who lunged forward and began licking the boy on his chin. Ray Charles dissolved into giggles. He dropped his backpack to the ground beside him and used both hands to pet the dog. “Is he apoodle?”
Rainey sunk down into a squat until she was eye-level with him. She didn’t think she could keep standing anyway. He didn’tlooklike John Lee, and yet memories of the brother she’d lost fell on her like asledgehammer.
It was hisvoice.
The way it chirped with excitement. And the look in his eyes as he petted and scratched Archie. A joyful look that penetrated. John Lee had worn the same intense, engaged look of delight and rapt concentration whenever he found something he loved: a game, a gadget, a shell on the beach. Holi still wore that look when sheread.
Rainey had grown up surrounded by the expression. It surpassed familiar. It was elemental. She knew it in her bones. In her soul. This boy was her brother, and she loved himalready.
And he really did look like Holi. His darker coloring matched hers, and the planes of their faces were so similar, especially now that the wind pushed his brown hair from hisforehead.
“I love his ears,” Ray Charles said, rubbing Archie’s crinkled earflap between his thumb and forefinger. When Archie let go a moan of pleasure, even the lump in Rainey’s throat couldn’t stop the laugh that escapedher.
“I think he likes that,” she murmured. And then because she couldn’t help herself. “I think he likesyou.”
He looked up at her, his wide hazel eyes locking on hers with a force that nearly knocked herback.
“Really? I want a dog so bad.” He kept one hand on Archie’s ear, but with the other, he unzipped and rifled through his backpack, unearthing a boatload of books as hedid.
“I really want a Labrador retriever,” he said, fishing out a book titledThe Everything Labrador Retriever Book: A Complete Guide to Raising, Training, and Caring for Your Laband thrusting it at her. “My mom says they’re too big, and they shed too much, but I know they’re uncommonlysmart.”
Rainey took the book he offered, but she couldn’t spare it a glance. “Uncommonly smart?” Rainey asked with agrin.
“Yeah, you know, singularly intelligent,” he offered as an explanation, frowning slightly as if her question seemed ridiculous. And maybe even a littlepitiful.
